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Monday, October 29, 2012

Early Literary Influences-A Guest Post by S.A. Garcia

After taking a brief break for GayRomLit and a few other sidetracks, I'm back today with Early Literary Influences. Today's post is by S.A. Garcia, who has heartfelt sentiment to share about books that meant a lot to her at an early age.

Take it away, S.A.

***

I need to write about Gordon Merrick and the brave writers
who made me feel like less of a freak. That might sound odd, but big revelations
really impact a teenager’s mind. Many years ago, well, thirty-four years, to be
exact, I discovered Gordon Merrick’s novels, which taught me plenty about gay
male sexuality. His books revealed to me that explicit romances about gay males
were actually being published.

Talk about a huge revelation!

Merrick’s novel “The Quirk” introduced me to his writing. I
remember peeking at the novel in the bookstore and almost screaming in delight.
Books like this were being written? I felt like I broke through a wall into a
wonderful new world. I feared the cashier would snatch the book from my hand
and kick me out of the store. Instead she took my money and handed me the bag.

I floated out, mind awhirl in glory.

Let me back track a bit. Before I discovered Gordon Merrick,
I read a wide range of novels. Historical romance (including bodice-rippers),
sci-fi, fantasy, horror— I read pretty much everything aside from contemporary
fiction. This aversion heavily influenced me when I started writing my stories.
Face it, I didn’t care what happened in the real world. I lived in it and like
your average shy, bright geek, didn’t find much to like about the world aside
from my geeky friends and my loving family. At least my parents accepted their
weird daughter. They didn’t care when I hid in the finished basement creating
fantasy art or sat on the back porch scribbling stories in my notebooks. They
never viewed me as rebellious or odd. Little did they know!

I started writing what I’ll call slash at around age fifteen.
I didn’t know what I wrote had a name! Why did I write about men in love? I
still haven’t figured out the real reason. I’ve pondered over ideas about not
accepting my own sexuality and compensating how I felt about women by writing
about men, but that could all be a load of nonsense. More likely I just loved
the idea of guys conducting a passionate romance. Wait, how’s this theory: as a
fledgling lesbian, perhaps I wanted to desexualize men by placing them with
each other.

Okay, go ahead, laugh. I would have made one helluva lousy
psychoanalyst.

Time to steer back into the pavement. This detour is too
bumpy. After I discovered Gordon Merrick, I purchased the Peter and Charlie
trilogy. At least those books had a happy for now ending. Then I encountered
“The Lord Won’t Mind”, a tearjerker of a book I still can’t read without crying
a river. Then again I still cry when Frosty the Snowman melts or when the Velveteen
Rabbit awaits the bonfire. Damn, I’m tearing up just thinking about that story.

Give me a minute here. *sniff*

Amazing how the Velveteen Rabbit still triggers my tears.
There’s a future post!

I need to move along before something else sets me off. For
the most part, Merrick did not write gay HEA. I’m not a critical student of his
work, just a reader, but he often had the attitude that gay men didn’t deserve
a happy ending. I can forgive him for that because he at least assured me
people wrote passionate, flamboyant romances about gay men.

Then I discovered John Rechy. Damn, what a different perspective. Rechy wrote about
rough and tumble sex, of drag queens, of a hard reality that didn’t jive with
Merrick’s romances featuring handsome men in tragic love. “City of Night”, “The
Sexual Outlaw”, “Numbers”— what eye opening books for a suburban geek. These
books stripped the gay male experience down to raw, hard passion and
desperation.

Larry Kramer's “Faggots” turned out to be a mix of the two
authors. When I read it, I didn’t know what a fuss it created in the world of
literature. I remember the story depressing me.

There I was reading and scribbling, creating a mix of
fantasy and contemporary for my own private pleasure.

Until AIDS really started ravaging the community. I can
point to this as when I stopped writing any contemporary stories. In the mid
1980’s, the concept of AIDS defeated my modern day romances. Writing fantasy
allowed me to ignore the tragedy. I played the writing ostrich.

Odd how I never wrapped my head around the problem until this
week. In the late 1980’s I did write a story where one man tried to kill
himself. The character feared he had infected his lover because he had been
deliberately raped by an insane AIDS-infected ex-lover. The story reached a
point where the abused character was wheelchair bound after his suicide
attempt. He was recovering. I never finished the story. Those poor characters,
stuck in limbo.

I wanted my romances to take place in Gordon Merrick’s non-AIDS
world, where everyone was handsome and tragic. Odd how Merrick killed off
people due to heartrending love or a need to sacrifice.

Brutal reality killed off gay men despite anyone’s effort.

Which leads me to me finally writing my first contemporary
intended for publication, “Cupid Knows Best”. I followed the rules. When my men
met in bed for the first time, they performed the safety ritual.

I am determined for them to have a happy ending. Sorry,
Gordon, my guys deserve HEA. No matter; thank you for opening up a whole new
world to the shy geek girl who thought she dwelled alone in her gay romance
world.

Sounds like a great place to introduce readers to Carl and
Marcelino from “Cupid Knows Best.”

BLURB:

When it comes to his professional life,
photographer Carl Conrad is at the top of his game. He molds impressionable
minds at university by day and jets off to Paris for gallery showings on long
weekends. Unfortunately, he pays for it with his disastrous personal life: Carl
kicked his boyfriend to the curb after one too many punches, so now it's just him and his hamsters, one of which he suspects may be
a space alien.

Then Cupid takes pity on Carl and hits
him where it hurts. It takes Carl all of three seconds to fall head over heels
in lust with set design student Marcelino Moya, despite the man’s
questionable—okay, deplorable—fashion sense. Convincing Marcelino to give him a
chance is the hard part, but Carl is up for the challenge, pun definitely
intended.

Marcelino plays hard to get, but he isn't immune to Carl's
charms. Carl talks him around to dinner, dating, and eventually moving in.
There's just one tiny
word standing between Carl and perfect happiness. Why won't Marcelino say it?

EXCERPT:

Wow, quite an eager crowd gathered
outside Manny’s battered brick exterior. I politely weaseled my way toward the
front and wagged my fingers in greeting. Bernie, the six-foot-eight
bouncer, gave me his usual bone-splitting hug. I never told him that each hug
tried snapping my ribs. The confession made me sound like a dainty wimp.

“Yo, Carl, my man, it’s been too long.
I heard about you finally ditching Martin. Let me warn you, he slithered in
here two nights ago. I almost denied him entrance, but he acted pretty tame.”

“Shhiiittt, like you need saving, buff
boy.” Bernie’s massive coffee-toned hands gripped my biceps. “More like I’ll
need to pick up Martin’s teeth before I toss his sorry ass out the door. My
hands tell me someone works out on a regular basis. See, Carl, you gotta learn
to throw the first punch.”

“What can I say, I’m a dedicated
pacifist.” I winked at Bernie’s laughter and entered the dense noise and
body-filled atmosphere. Tonight the club appeared packed, beyond packed,
infinitely packed to the max. Of course that was the point; a body wanted to
dance as close as possible to the sweet target of its aching desire. Forget
cheek-to-cheek; tight dick-to-dick action ruled this mayhem.

Bernie’s lover, Rasheed, towered over
everyone else at the bar. He monitored the sweaty action while slipping drinks
to his favorites. The ex-football player-turned-club owner acted like a trusting
kitty, but if a patron broke Rasheed’s strict rules, he turned into a tiger
displaying honeydew melon-sized paws. Rasheed liked this artsy-fartsy flake
because I appreciated arguing about old movies. Over the years I had turned
into the classic patron who dropped in on bleak February weeknights for the
company, most recently when Martin had traveled on business. My paranoia
sickened me, but too often I suspected Martin’s business involved other men.

Murmuring “excuse me” while pushing
forward helped me wade through the masculine mass. I maneuvered until I caught
my friend’s interest. Rasheed laughed in greeting and held out his ridiculously
large hand. The two slender men blocking the bar hastily cleared away from the
imposing thick arm jutting past their startled ears.

My ego wiggled in glee, but I shrugged
off his words. “Naw, I’m here to watch.”

My reply received a mocking snort.
“What an old spoilsport. Yo, the usual?”

I nodded and held up my pointer finger.
“In celebration of the new semester, please make my drink a double.”

Rasheed rolled his jet-black eyes.
“Sweet hot celebration indeed. Sleek young boy flesh crowds in here. Hmmph,
tonight my sappy Bernie let in a few too many youngsters. He’s always a softy
when school first starts. I can’t wait until he becomes picky about his prize
boys and stops setting me up for a major bust.”

“Come on, you think the police would
bust a former football star?”

“Yes, I do.”

I shrugged in dismay. “What the fuck is
this world coming to?”

“Damned if I know!”

We shared a laugh. I twisted around to
observe the crowded dance floor.

No way. Lust soared into red alert and tried
strangling me. No shit, I saw, I saw.
Ouch, I didn’t need a heart attack. Falling to the floor wouldn’t help Cupid’s
wacky plan, although with this packed crowd, I’d remain standing even when
dead.

Sheer joyous amazement stiffened my
cock. Across the packed dance floor, up on a little platform, a delicious young
blond gyrated against Marcelino. I watched their dance in rapt admiration.
Blondie artfully shook his long flowing hair. Tasty. Ha, ha, enjoy my Marcelino now, sweet blondie, because in a few
minutes, you are being replaced. I knew exactly what I planned to say. I
had pulled the same stunt when I wanted to meet Martin. Of course now I wished
that someone had stopped me. A wise soul should have nailed my damned feet to
the floor. The gruesome ache would have felt less painful than suffering
Martin’s unexpected white-collar violence.

Gin and tonics reminded me of Ibiza’s
wild beaches. During our yearly spring vacations, my first serious lover, Ian,
had adored sitting on a tranquil terrace sipping gin and tonics while watching
the frolicking beachgoers, which included a much younger me.

My sharp wince shook the lazy image
from my mind. Great, not the time to bring another failed relationship into
focus. Time for mental rescue. The potent drink barreled into my system. Blam:
every nerve ending tingled in giddy release.

I winked at my friend and leaned across
the drink-stained bar top. “Rasheed, my dear friend, I must withdraw my earlier
words. I see my sweet destiny. I am off to claim him for my own.”

Another real-time hallucination kicked
in. My body swam through thick, loud water. I moved confidently like an old
shark sliding among flashing bright young guppies. Closer, closer; somehow the
lively crowd parted without me having to kick, punch, claw, or rip off any
pretty heads from necks. They instinctively let me skim along. The happy
dancers smelled my deep, feral need. Closer. Closer.

I paused for a second. I mindlessly
allowed the tight, sweating bodies crowding my space to push me around in their
sexy rhythm. Before I attacked, I needed to admire my glorious prey. Damn,
tonight my erotic film star had dressed for wanton sex. His heroic body sported
a simple black silk vest over a strategically ripped purple silk tank top. Dark
flesh peeped through the rips. Skintight black linen trousers completed his
outfit. Basic. Tasty. Yum, pleasing to see at least Marcelino understood how to
dress for serious seduction. Why did he dance at Manny’s? My mind ticked off
other gay dance clubs closer to where Marcelino lived.

My admiring eyes narrowed in fresh
focus. Under the sheer material, a thin silver chain traveled between two
glittering silver rings attached to dark nipples. My fingers ached to pull the
chain and stop his sweet sex train. Watch out, the hungry shark planned to
derail the sexy express right into his waiting flippers.

This shark swam around the platform and
floated up three steps. My fingers captured Blondie’s slim right arm. I leaned
in close and whispered in his delicate pink ear. His golden hair almost filled
my mouth. “Sir, the man you are dancing with is wanted by the police for
questioning. I advise you to step away and let me take over.”

Blondie’s head twisted. His startled
wide blue gaze fixed on me. What a tender cutie. He smelled good too, fresh and
minty. If fair Marcelino acted as crazy as Martin, I’d keep this prime young
hottie in mind.

No, if Marcelino acted crazy, I planned
to become a sad monk, a dweller of the No Romantic Luck Brotherhood.

oh yes!! The Velveteen Rabbit.... ;A; what the heck was that... omg... I cried rivers.. LOL...but.... v___v errghh.. I haven't read any of those others... LOL..But the book that really impacted me, was Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson. It was unlike anything that I had ever read before. Like... I used to read Artemis Fowl and Alex Rider very kid books, but after that one... It completely changed the styles and genre's I read. Now I read every/anything so long as the cover and blurb interest me. lolBut more than that, I like to read more and more books that have depth and can really make me cry. and FEEL for the character.